eWeek: Cisco has announced that it plans to be the first vendor to make available a 1-gigabit-per-second Wi-Fi access point for enterprise networks. Early in 2013, the company will launch an access point based on 802.11ac, the standard that will succeed today's 802.11n. The company plans to introduce an 802.11ac module that can plug into its existing access points. “It allows [customers] to upgrade and not have to go through the guesswork of, ‘Should we upgrade to 802.11n or go with 802.11ac?’ You can invest in 11n now and upgrade to 11ac with a new radio,” explained Cisco's Suji Hajela. “It’s a way of future-proofing your network.”

Other vendors, including Aruba Networks and Hewlett-Packard, are also working on 802.11ac technology.